Daydreamer

My calculations indicate that, assuming that casting ABar when MB procs doesn't interfere with the proc, it is better DPS to use Barrage-Missile-Barrage-Blast rather than Missile-Barrage on MB procs.

Rotation: 1x Arcane Barrage, 1x Arcane Blast, 0.15 (Arcane Barrage + Arcane Missiles)
Arcane Power: 14.28% uptime * 30% increase = 1.0429 multiplier
Total dmg: (4315.87 + 4470.29 + 0.15 * (4315.87 + 7298.11)) * 1.0429 = 10979.77
Total time: 1.3138 + 2.1897 + 0.15 * (1.3138 + 2.1897) = 4.0291 seconds
Total mana: (433.11 + 126.35 + 0.15 * (433.11+ 824.75)) * 1.0429 = 780.23
DPS: 10979.77 / 4.0291 = 2725.17
DPM: 10979.77 / 780.23 = 14.07

Still working on that math on the ABx3 rotation with MBAM as soon as it procs, but the DPM number for it in Lhivera's post is a little off... the total mana calculated for ABlast (1108.95) is not used when calculating total mana cost (783.35 is used instead).

Unless I'm missing something, the DPM for the ABx3 rotation is 12.12 -- which is not worth it for an increase of less than 6 DPS.

Alt Rotation: 1x Arcane Barrage, 3x Arcane Blast, 0.3859 Arcane Missiles
Total ABlast dmg: 4470.29 + 5140.83 + 5811.38 = 15422.50
Total ABlast mana: 126.35 + 345.05 + 637.55 = 1108.95
Arcane Power: 14.28% uptime * 30% increase = 1.0429 multiplier
Total dmg: (4315.87 + 15422.50 + 0.3859 * 7298.11) * 1.0429 = 23522.31
Total time: 1.3138 + 3 * 2.1897 + 0.3859 * 2.1897 = 8.7279 seconds
Total mana: (433.11 + 1108.95 + 0.3859 * 824.75) * 1.0429 = 1940.14
DPS: 23522.31 / 8.7279 = 2695.07
DPM: 23522.31 / 1940.14 = 12.12

 

MetallicaRulez0

This is the problem. Blizzard seems to intend the Fire tree to be completely based around AoE. The problem with that? There is no encounter I can think of that was so focused on AoE that you had to spec just to compensate. Any spec can spam AE and do respectably well in AoE encounters. You absolutely cannot trade single-target DPS, which matters on every boss, for AoE damage, which very rarely matters beyond untalented AE. I see a few areas they could tweak to make Fire more desirable.

1.) Buff Burnout to 10/20/30/40/50% critical damage bonus. This talent is pretty embarrassing when you compare it with Spell Power, this puts it almost in line with it (you know... except worse).

2.) Add another coefficient talent, or tack it onto an existing bad talent. For example, tack 6% additional Fireball scaling onto Hot Streak, since that talent is very underwhelming right now.

3.) Make Living Bomb scale well. Unless this scales well, it isn't worth the point.

4.) Change Firestarter. I don't care what you do to it, so long as it somehow increases single-target DPS. We do not use Flamestrike.

 

Daydreamer

If you MBAM as soon as the proc occurs rather than at the end of your Arcane Blasts:

You have the same chance of a MB proc of
You have a 0.15 chance of casting only one blast, proccing immediately
You have a (1-0.15) = 0.85 chance at least casting two blasts, and a (0.85*0.15) = 0.13 of casting only two
You have a (1-(0.15+0.13)) = 0.72 chance of casting three blasts -- of which (0.72*0.15) = 0.11 will proc MB and (0.72-0.11) = 0.61 will not.

Alt Rotation: 1x Arcane Barrage, 3x Arcane Blast, proc Arcane Missiles as soon as Missile Barage is up
Total ABlast dmg: 4470.29 + 0.85 * 5140.83 + 0.72 * 5811.38 = 13024.19
Total ABlast mana: 126.35 + 0.85 * 345.05 + 0.72 * 637.55 = 878,68
Total ABlast time: 2.19 + 0.85 * 2.19 + 0.72 * 2.19 = 5.6276
Arcane Power: 14.28% uptime * 30% increase = 1.0429 multiplier
Total dmg: (4315.87 + 13024.19 + 0.3859 * 7298.11) * 1.0429 = 21021.11 (my spreadsheet gives 20136.07 with less rounding)
Total time: 1.3138 + 5.62768 + 0.3859 * 2.1897 = 7.7918 seconds
Total mana: (433.11 + 878.68 + 0.3859 * 824.75) * 1.0429 = 1701.63
DPS: 20136.07 / 7.7918 = 2699.76
DPM: 20136.07 / 1701.63 = 12.36

All in all, not really worth the effort over the single ABlast rotation, considering it eats up more mana for limited gain.

Let's add the Barrage to the "on-proc" rotation

Alt Rotation: 1x Arcane Barrage, 3x Arcane Blast, proc Arcane Barrage + Arcane Missiles as soon as Missile Barage is up
Total ABlast dmg: 4470.29 + 0.85 * 5140.83 + 0.72 * 5811.38 = 13024.19
Total ABlast mana: 126.35 + 0.85 * 345.05 + 0.72 * 637.55 = 878,68
Total ABlast time: 2.19 + 0.85 * 2.19 + 0.72 * 2.19 = 5.6276
Arcane Power: 14.28% uptime * 30% increase = 1.0429 multiplier
Total dmg: (4315.87 + 13024.19 + 0.3859 * (4315.87 + 7298.11)) * 1.0429 = 22772,90 (spreadsheet)
Total time: 1.3138 + 5.62768 + 0.3859 * (1.3138 + 2.1897) = 8.2988 seconds
Total mana: (433.11 + 878.68 + 0.3859 * (433.11 + 824.75)) * 1.0429 = 1701.63
DPS: 22772,90 / 8.2988 = 2744.12
DPM: 22772,90 / 1701.63 = 12.14

If you can sustain it, the extra 19 DPS might be worth it over simple ABar-ABlast-MB(ABar-AM). It's also pretty intuitive -- cast until you proc, then Barrage -> Missile -> start over.

 

solbergb

Lets pretend for a moment that for some reason we'd want to trade single target dps for area dps. Some of the changes are positive. World in flames being a crit enhancer means it will in fact work even with the spell damage caps, for example.

The fire tree still bugs me because there are no spammable fire AOE's. Flame strike has too much of its damage tied up in the AOE, and the other two have big cooldowns (and one tosses enemies around, not good in raid situations). I do like the idea of living bomb, but it's a damage enhancer, it's not really a standalone AOE (you should also be spamming other AOE spells while it's cooking off). Even the instant flamestrike is problematic...you have to click target that spell, it doesn't just "go off". So if you are casting instants or otherwise working primarily with keyboard you'll get locked up with your "instant" spell waiting for you to choose the targeting circle.

So fire is the "king of AOE" as long as it mostly does arcane explosions. What's wrong with this picture?

(some kind of explosive scorch debuff option would be nice....put the scorch stack on ALL of the trash or adds. That would have been a far cooler top tier talent than the way burnout ended up given the scorch changes)

I suspect the only "deep fire single target" raid spec option is going to be actually arcane/fire or frostfire. I see some PVP potential in an AOE based deep fire build, certainly in battlegrounds and world PVP, possibly in arena as well. Fire will also be kinda fun for leveling. If nothing changes though, you'd no more raid deep fire than anyone raids with "deep arcane and no T5 bonuses" today. Or raid badly wounded for 1.5 sec pyroblasts, but that seems like a strategy that would work poorly.

 

Daydreamer

If you MBAM as soon as the proc occurs rather than at the end of your Arcane Blasts:

You have the same chance of a MB proc of
You have a 0.15 chance of casting only one blast, proccing immediately
You have a (1-0.15) = 0.85 chance at least casting two blasts, and a (0.85*0.15) = 0.13 of casting only two
You have a (1-(0.15+0.13)) = 0.72 chance of casting three blasts -- of which (0.72*0.15) = 0.11 will proc MB and (0.72-0.11) = 0.61 will not.

Alt Rotation: 1x Arcane Barrage, 3x Arcane Blast, proc Arcane Missiles as soon as Missile Barage is up
Total ABlast dmg: 4470.29 + 0.85 * 5140.83 + 0.72 * 5811.38 = 13024.19
Total ABlast mana: 126.35 + 0.85 * 345.05 + 0.72 * 637.55 = 878,68
Total ABlast time: 2.19 + 0.85 * 2.19 + 0.72 * 2.19 = 5.6276
Arcane Power: 14.28% uptime * 30% increase = 1.0429 multiplier
Total dmg: (4315.87 + 13024.19 + 0.3859 * 7298.11) * 1.0429 = 21021.11 (my spreadsheet gives 20136.07 with less rounding)
Total time: 1.3138 + 5.62768 + 0.3859 * 2.1897 = 7.7918 seconds
Total mana: (433.11 + 878.68 + 0.3859 * 824.75) * 1.0429 = 1701.63
DPS: 20136.07 / 7.7918 = 2699.76
DPM: 20136.07 / 1701.63 = 12.36

All in all, not really worth the effort over the single ABlast rotation, considering it eats up more mana for limited gain.

Let's add the Barrage to the "on-proc" rotation

Alt Rotation: 1x Arcane Barrage, 3x Arcane Blast, proc Arcane Barrage + Arcane Missiles as soon as Missile Barage is up
Total ABlast dmg: 4470.29 + 0.85 * 5140.83 + 0.72 * 5811.38 = 13024.19
Total ABlast mana: 126.35 + 0.85 * 345.05 + 0.72 * 637.55 = 878,68
Total ABlast time: 2.19 + 0.85 * 2.19 + 0.72 * 2.19 = 5.6276
Arcane Power: 14.28% uptime * 30% increase = 1.0429 multiplier
Total dmg: (4315.87 + 13024.19 + 0.3859 * (4315.87 + 7298.11)) * 1.0429 = 22772,90 (spreadsheet)
Total time: 1.3138 + 5.62768 + 0.3859 * (1.3138 + 2.1897) = 8.2988 seconds
Total mana: (433.11 + 878.68 + 0.3859 * (433.11 + 824.75)) * 1.0429 = 1701.63
DPS: 22772,90 / 8.2988 = 2744.12
DPM: 22772,90 / 1701.63 = 12.14

If you can sustain it, the extra 19 DPS might be worth it over simple ABar-ABlast-MB(ABar-AM). It's also pretty intuitive.

 

Jonny_Monroe

I felt that there were 2 potential buffs to hotstreak that may make single-target fire more apealing;

the simple one would be to make it proc off only 2 crits in a row, but give the tallent a 5second internal cooldown to prevent rediculous crit streaks. 'Whenever you score 2 spell criticals in a row, the critical strike chance of your next spell is increased by 100%. 5sec cooldown.'

the more complicated one is to have it gain charges; 3 crits in a row increases your crit chance by 60%, each crit caused after this reduces your crit chance by 20% untill the buff is gone.: 'Whenever you score 3 criticals in a Row, you can 60% increased spell crit chance. The next 3 spells cast will reduce this bonus by 20% per spell.'

The nice aspect of the second option is that it gives you more of a 'streak' effect, and more overall single-target crit chance whilst still not being over-the-top since any time you don't crit, you lose the stack and have to start again. the actuall buff numbers can be easilly tweaked to reach a more desirable amount (30%, 3 charges. 50%, 2 charges. however much is balanced.)

 

Jonny_Monroe

The instant FS buff will sit on you untill you use it. its really quite easy to aim your mouse while pressing BW/DB hotkeys and then hit your flamestrike hotkey and click for the instant cast without losing any time.

What i'm interested in is using combustion on fire AoE to force a hot streak proc, then blowing it on a blizzard for 100% crit blizzard. The advantage, of course, is that you'd have blizzard ticking for large damage and still get the benefit of the flamestrike DoT. This idea probably works better on an elemental spec (if anyone would take FFb with hot streak), since your blizzard then has ice shards backing it up.

something like this http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?...00000000000000

for a build like that to work you'd need to be leeching WC, but other than that you have a viable flamestrike/blizzard rotation getting high crit chance (if hot streak works a certain way with crits you might be able to drop shatter/nova and just rely on hot streak for huge crit chance). blow DB/blastwave when they're cooled, of course.

 

kadgar

Does anyone understand the change of pyroblast from 6 to 5 sec? Actually that's a nerf because of the lower coefficient.
Why not changing improved fireball to also reduce pyroblast casttime by 1 sec?
But even then, the spell is still bad and needs some develloper attention. (stronger dot component, ...)

Another broken spell is AM: 5 points improved talent + 3 empowered and still a useless spell if not put another 5 points into a proc which destroys your AB stack when using it, come on ...

Arcane Blast: increase the buff duration to 5 sec and all options are open. (with a little haste ...)

Fire: Move imp scorch to the top of the tree and reduce it to 2 points, similar to arcane aubtelty. It'll be required for every raid spec, same way like now arcane subtelty is required for every specc because of AE.
Btw, give scorch some love in emp. fireball talent so that's not such a pain for fire mages keeping it up (frost and arcane mages will have this penalty ofc.).

Alternatively if you want every tree have its own raid synergy, move it deeper into fire tree, but then also move focus magic deeper (and make it stronger - more stacks for 25raids or let AM increase number of stack instead of consuming, or ...).

Frost: Change Ice Floes to also affect Icy Veins' cd and make it stronger (at least for Icy Veins), move it deeper into frost tree if needed.

Change Deep freeze to also work on targets with 5 stacks of Winter's chill applied (won't happen in pvp, but useful against bosses if the dmg and its scaling is appropriate). The spell has 30 sec. cooldown, so no abuse in pve possible.
A better solution would be to bring back Winter's Grasp in an intelligent way.
Btw, does Winter's Chill debuff work with DK spells?

EDIT: For Improved WE I'd rather like to see WE benefit from (penetration,) crit, haste, hit and spirit gear, better spelldmg, int and sta. scaling, than a longer duration. Also WE getting Icy Veins when the mage activates them would be nice.

 

Lhivera

It's actually only 6% (2%, stacks 3 times), and it's included, I just neglected to change its name from the old "Nature's Fury."


I include the estimated regen in my mana costs. If a spell costs 500 mana to cast, but you regenerate 50 mana while casting it, I use a cost of 450 mana. What I'm really doing is calculating damage per mana debit, rather than damage per cost of cast.


My feeling is that 60% is about as high as Burnout can go without providing ludicrously high benefit per point. At 35% crit, that's a 10.6% DPS increase for 5 points. Even going that high might require an increase in the mana penalty. And that's nowhere near high enough to make its single-target DPS competitive. We can throw out all kinds of ideas, but I think it comes down to:

- Replace Firestarter with a single-target DPS talent.
- Tack a short-cast Pyro proc onto a PvE talent, such as Hot Streak. What if a Hot Streak proc also gave you a 2-sec cast Pyroblast, for instance?
- Add a +Fire% debuff to another class -- perhaps deep, deep Destruction? Even 5% might be enough.


Pyro already has a nonstandard coefficient; I don't think it'll necessarily get a coefficient change from this adjustment. The 5-sec cast time is made to synergize with the Fiery Payback cast time reduction to get the time down to 1.5 secs.

Pathetic earthlings. Hurling your bodies out into the void, without the slightest inkling of who or what is out here. If you had known anything about the true nature of the universe, anything at all, you would've hidden from it in terror. -Ming the Merciless

 

Arazan

Frankly I think we're looking at this in a way that's way too confusing. Between MBAM, Arcane Blast, and Frostbolt, we're talking about 2.5 seconds of base casting regardless of which spell you're casting. We're also looking that regardless of MBAM, Arcane Blast, or Frostbolt, that Arcane Barrage should be better dps, which is why the mention of rotations of ABar/AB are better off casting another ABar *before* casting MBAM.

Reaction time notwithstanding (if you're good enough to recognize MB procs within the gcd after casting ABar then it doesn't matter), the basic principle is that you want to cast ABar every 3 seconds. Everything else, including MBAM, is filler while you're just waiting for ABar's cooldown. Right?


So, if that's accurate and we're looking at purely maximizing ABar casts with MBAM, AB, and Frostbolt as filler, there's no need to look at deep arcane in terms of rotations, just in terms of prioritizations. MBAM should be the best dps, so the question becomes whether or not you're better off casting arcane blast, frostbolt, fireball, or hardcasting arcane missiles. Hardcasting AM doesn't seem like it'd ever really be the best choice, so then it boils down to AB/frostbolt/fireball. Fireball gets nix'ed if you're assuming the build has IV, so it's just arcane blast or frostbolt.

Now, I think the reason why arcane blast looks so mediocre in ABar/AB rotations is because you can't maintain the debuff without some huge amount of haste, which is why ABar/ABx3 seems to be the appealing choice. However the problem there is that you're delaying TWO ABars, which again if the basic principle of deep arcane is to cast ABar every 3 seconds for max dps, would seem to be a worse choice than ABar/frostbolt.

Frankly, I looked at the numbers and didn't really like the setup that Lhiv did or the assumption set, so I've decided to just do my own math for the whole thing on a per-spell basis, which makes looking at rotations a little easier, imo.

Anyway, I'm gonna start the math, numbers should be up in an hour or two.

 

Copernicus

There were earlier reports of Frost Nova/Freezing lasting for a longer time. This might be an explanation-

WoW Forums -> Maim does not stop auto-attacks

 

Soul

Waitaminute, wands eat charges? Does wand damage actually increase then? More generally, (although maybe not totally relevant to the mage class) does wand damage scale with any stat in WotLK?

Also, with regard to Focused power, does anyone else read the talent as being "All spells cast on the target behave as if the caster had an additional 150 spellpower"? Sort of like an offensive version of Amplify magic.

 

Daydreamer

I don't think that's the discrepancy. From your theorycraft post:

The figure you've calculated for total ABlast Mana is 1108.95 -- this figure includes regeneration and Clearcasting. Later on though, when you calculate total mana used, you use a different figure.

Here the total Arcane Blast mana is listed as 783.35 when -- I figure -- you'd want to use the previous figure of 1108.95. I'm thinking it's a typo.

 

Arazan

Note that as these numbers are completely arbitrary, they'll be affected the same way by partial resists and the unavoidable 1% resist. Because of that, I'm ignoring resists completely. It'll inflate the numbers a little, but again, they're arbitrary, so it doesn't matter. Same with haste... it affects all spells the same (not counting the discontinuous nature of ABar's cooldown filler), so I'm just discounting it as we're all aware of how haste affects ABar rotations.

Assumptions:

This build: http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?...40323122500351

2200 spell power (including Focus Magic and warlock EW)
25% generic crit (so not including school or spell-specific stuff)
5% haste from gear

Debuffs:
CoE (+10% frost/arcane), Earth and Moon (+6% arcane), Imp Scorch (+10% frost/arcane), Winter's Chill (+10% frost crit), Misery (+5% frost/arcane)


Arcane Product: 1.34673
Frost Product: 1.2705 (+10% crit)


Group utility:
Elemental Oath (+6% critical strike damage)


So, with that:

Arcane Barrage:

( [ 1040 + 2200 * 0.8571 ] * 1.34673 ) * ( 1 + [ 0.25 * 1.855 ] )
Average damage = 5693 (3795 dps)

Arcane Blast w/ 0 debuff stacks:

( [ 745 + 2200 * 0.8043 ] * 1.34673 ) * ( 1 + [ 0.37 * 1.855 ] )
Average damage = 5710 (2284 dps)

with 1 debuff stack: 6567 (2626 dps)
with 2 debuff stacks: 7423 (2969 dps)
with 3 debuff stacks: 8730 (3312 dps)

Arcane Missiles:

[ 1800 + 2200 * 1.8786 ] * 1.34673 * ( 1 + [ 0.25 * 1.855 ] )
Average damage = 11695 (2339 dps, 4678 if MBAM)

Frostbolt:

( [ 830 + 2200 * 0.8143 ] * 1.2705 * ( 1 + [ 0.35 * 2.385 ] )
Average damage = 6111 (2444 dps)


So it seems MBAM is actually higher priority than ABar... at least with these numbers. The same goes for frostbolt being better in this build than a Abar/AB rotation, at least damage-wise... AB is still better dpm because it's cheap as hell with no debuff stacks. A weird consequence of that is that you could drop the 3 points in Incineration and pick up Piercing Ice, as well as dropping a point in Spell Impact to max Arcane Mind... but that really hurts Arcane Blast which is great dps when spammed.

Also, the math for Arcane Missiles seems off. I ran the numbers twice but got the same result... so I could have made the same mistake twice but I don't think I did. Anyway, if you see any errors speak up, but again these numbers weren't designed to show what dps mages should be doing, just to be an example of scaling.



EDIT:

Frostbolt, now with 100% more cowbell- err Frozen Rune Weapon!

( [ 830 + 2200 * 0.8143 ] * 1.39755 * ( 1 + [ 0.35 * 2.385 ] )
Average damage = 6722 (2689 dps)

 

Deedre

Celani, my main concern with such a change is mana. Right now with the short debuf timer you have very good control over your mana usage; a longer debuf removes that choice and forces you to look to something other than arcane blast if mana starts becoming a serious issue. At which point a heavier investment in frost becomes nearly mandatory rather than optional for deep arcane builds.

I like the existing debuf timer as it tends to preserve the purity of deep arcane.

If you don't want to make that 33%+ haste jump, that's a simple question of gear substitution. (Outside of heroism, at any rate.)

 

Theophanes

What about spell pushback, and what about the fact that you have to spend 7.5 seconds to bring Arcane Blast back up to non subpar dps. (or 5 if you're doing the two-stack)

 

Deedre

In a heavy spell pushback environment, I would expect arcanists to rely mostly on arcane barrage and instants. (As they would in a mobility situation.) Arcane blast is a stand and nuke spell, and increasing the debuf timer doesn't fundamentally alter that.

 

Lhivera

You are correct! Thanks, I'll fix that.

ETA: I find it curious that so many people are willing to assume a Tier 10 5-point Balance Druid talent, but not a Tier 3 1-point Frost DK talent. Mind you, I don't know how much Frost damage the weapon buff delivers, but it would be increased by 27% by debuffs, and would boost damage (and hence threat) from all the DK's various other Frost abilities by 10% as well, at virtually zero cost.

Pathetic earthlings. Hurling your bodies out into the void, without the slightest inkling of who or what is out here. If you had known anything about the true nature of the universe, anything at all, you would've hidden from it in terror. -Ming the Merciless

 

Jhitsman

Hello all. I have been lurking on these boards for over a year now. With the release of the new talents I thought it was time to join the discussion.

I tried to read and process as much of this massive thread as I could. Apologies if this has been covered and I missed it. Has anyone considered a deep fire spec that uses frostfire bolt as its primary nuke?

maybe somethign along these lines...
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

If you had an arcane and a frost mage in the raid putting up arcane focus and winter's chill wouldn't this spec be competitive?

 

Densor